Just Chats Between Friends
by PurryCat
Summary: Back by popular demand. Among friends you can talk about everything and anything. Nothing is too personal or awkward. Not even when you talk about sex. Good. Glad we cleared that one out. JavaJunkie one-shots. T-rated for language.
1. Chapter 1: Jason and Nicole

**AN:** Hi, dear readers. Two in a week, you might ask? Well, consider yourselves lucky! This one-shot was something that's always been in my head, and last night it just came all out. I want to thank my girl **DSLeo** for betaing this.

Note that the rating is a strong T. I've debated making it M, but it's not smutty or graphic, so T it is. Write your complaints to my mom. You're not getting a refund. This takes place in the second half of season four, somewhere between "A Family Matter" and "Nag Hammadi [...]".

* * *

 **Just A Chat Between Friends**

After all those weeks of dating Jason, Lorelai just couldn't decide when it exactly had started. Probably with his birth... At first she was courted, then disappointment by his lack of commitment on their first date. Then came the first sex, followed by a night spent in miserable loneliness in his guest room. And now this. In retrospect, it had come on so gradually, she felt like a rabbit that had been put into a pot of water and now that the pot was on the stove she couldn't tell when it had become too hot for her. Even when, in fact, it had become too cold. Being pampered after a great first night together was one thing. But spending another night alone in the room next to his when it hasn't been that great, at least not for her? That was not what Lorelai had signed up for.

She checked the alarm clock on the designer nightstand. It was just after nine. He had to get up early the next day, so they had had an early supper followed by an early orgasm. On his side. She got out of bed and put her clothes back on.

She knocked on his door and felt like she was 17 again, when knocking on doors had been part of her job on a daily basis. She poked her head through the door.

"Jason, I totally forgot that Sookie told me to be at the inn super early tomorrow. So I'm just gonna go now."

The lie had crossed her lips more easily than she had anticipated.

"OK," came the reply of a half-asleep Jason.

She slipped out of his apartment and was in Stars Hollow in record time. She drove by the diner and saw Luke behind the counter. The chairs weren't even up yet. Maybe she could help him close up faster.

Prepared to hear the bells announce her presence, she was surprised to find the door locked. The noise of her body slamming into it had alarmed Luke. He turned around and all but jogged across the diner to let Lorelai in.

"Hey, are you all right?" he asked worriedly.

Lorelai rubbed her elbow and arm, and uttered a quiet "Yeah."

When she sat down at the counter she couldn't help but wonder. "Since when do you lock the door so soon? It's half past nine."

"Normally, I wouldn't," he explained as he poured her the remains of the coffee in her favorite mug. "But Kirk wouldn't leave me alone. He came back three times to ask me if I could come home with him to distract his mother so she wouldn't notice him taking Lulu to his room."

"Yikes," said Lorelai before she drank from the mug.

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"You look fancy tonight." Of course he had noticed her clothes. He had to force himself to look anywhere else than into her eyes or he might drown in them one day.

"Fancy shmancy," she mumbled.

He ignored her comment. "You wanna donut with your coffee or something?"

She eyed him suspiciously. Had he just offered her a donut without her asking? "Is it poisoned"?

"No."

"Is there a tiny little man inside so you can monitor my food intake whenever I'm not eating here?"

He rolled his eyes. "You got me. It's not poisoned, but I am part of a pioneer project in monitoring food intake."

"I knew it!"

"So? You gonna take the donut?"

"You have to ask?"

He slid the saucer over the counter, a well-practiced move she always enjoyed. She was a bit surprised that he didn't bag it for her. A plate meant consumption in the diner. He had made that clear after the bagel incident of '97.

"I'm trying to eat it quickly," she commented as he went on with his closing down routine. He was just cleaning the coffee maker.

"No need to hurry."

"Not trying to get home to the missus?" she asked. She just had to. It was half masochism, half evil. Luke belonged to Stars Hollow like the gazebo. Him living elsewhere was the same to her as if someone had a house without a living room.

He turned his body only a little, but he saw her from the corner of his eye. "No."

That was curt, noticed Lorelai.

"And you? Not staying at that boyfriend of yours?"

She was thrown for a bit, but quickly recovered. "No." After a moment she added, "Since when do you know?"

"A couple weeks at least."

"How?"

"Overheard Babette and Patty," he said. He left out the part about him almost stumbling into Caesar after finding out.

"I didn't really wanna spend the night at his place. Especially tonight."

Luke wrinkled his forehead as he tried to figure out what she possibly could have meant by that. He turned around to face her. "He didn't... do anything, uh, to you, did he?"

"God no!" Luke gulped in relief. "I wish..." she mumbled.

"Don't joke about that!"

"Sorry."

"And what did you mean exactly?" he dug deeper. He had abandoned the coffee maker and was now in his usual spot, opposite of Lorelai behind the counter.

"You don't really wanna know..."

"And why would I have asked?"

"Because you're nice."

"I am not."

"Oh, you are nice."

"If you say so..."

"I'd say so."

"You dodged the question."

"Believe me, you _don't_ wanna know."

"Lorelai. Why would I ask you if I didn't wanna know? Have I ever been mistaken for a chatty person?"

"Fine. At your own risk." She drained the rest of the coffee. "The evening didn't go as planned. I wasn't exactly satisfied."

She could see the wheels turning in his head. The deep crimson in his cheeks signaled that he had understood what she was trying to communicate. Luke wished he could disappear in that moment.

"I knew it was too much for your delicate ears... They say when you get married you'll get prudish."

"Stop it! I doubt I would have reacted any other way had I not been married," he defended himself. "Besides, what did you expect?"

"I didn't expect anything. Aim high, expect nothing, isn't that what they say?"

"How the hell should I know? Who are you referring to anyway when you say 'they say'? And what's with the proverbs?"

"Well, it's proverb Thursday."

He grunted in response. They were quiet for a while.

"If you wanna talk, I'm here," he offered.

"While that's a nice offer, I don't think I can talk to anyone about it, not even Sookie."

Silence.

"I'd need a lot more that a warm cup of coffee and a spy donut before I'd talk about _that_ ," she announced.

"I have some Jim Beam in the store room."

"Are you serious?"

"Always." And with that, he went around the corner, and when he came back with the bottle, she slightly shook her head.

"What gives?" she asked him in bewilderment.

"You wanted to talk, so let's." He grabbed two glasses and filled them each with a finger of whiskey.

She downed the content of her glass faster than he could grab his. To his surprise, she didn't immediately start babbling about her problems. She seemed to practice phrasing what she was about to say.

"Being referred to as 'Umlauts'," she started, "may have been a smart thing at 13, especially after the prank he pulled then. But being called Umlauts in any sexual content has turned me off so much, that if I had a penis, it would have crawled back inside me."

Luke gave her a more than puzzled look. He followed her lead and drank his whiskey, then he said to her, "I have not the slightest clue what you just said."

"OK, I'll start at the beginning. I'm dating a guy called Jason who I know from childhood because our parents have been running in the same circles forever. When I was 13 we were at summer camp together, and he found it hilarious to rock a boat so hard that I fell in the pond. With my clothes on. The cold water had its effects on my body and I wasn't wearing a bra, so I was christened 'Umlauts'."

"Umlauts?" he asked, still without a clue.

"You know, the two dots above vowels? Mötley Crüe?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, my wet upper body kinda resembled the two dots..."

And the penny has dropped. "Oh. Oh!" he said, even more embarrassed now that he was forced to think of a naked and wet Lorelai with erect nipples. He immediately refilled their glasses.

"So, um, he called you that? Umlauts? Tonight?"

Lorelai took a sip. "Well, yeah, but it was kinda in the wrong situation."

"You mean, during..."

"It wasn't during during, but definitely in a moment leading up to... it."

Luke downed his second glass of whiskey. There it was, the moment he had dreaded for years. A talk with Lorelai about sex. And he had encouraged her to open up. What on earth was wrong with him?

"And it wasn't just that," she added, finishing her second glass. "After that I kinda had a hard time getting... there. And I can't keep being pushed into his guest room. He can't not finish me and expect me to sleep in the next room."

Luke wished he could cut off his ears now. "More?" he asked her, the bottle already in his hand.

"One more," she nodded.

Her words haunted him in his head. This putz had the audacity to send her another room after sex? And not do his job first? Down his throat went another shot of whiskey.

"So, what did you do?" he asked. It was all the alcohol. He never would or could have asked her this sober.

"What do you think I did? I did the job myself," said Lorelai, raised her glass and emptied it.

It was pure torture. The images she put in his head drove him close to insanity. And beyond arousal. Thank God for the counter between them. This was wrong on so many levels. For one, he was married. Secondly, he and Lorelai were friends. And thirdly, they had never had that kind of relationship. They had moments of emotional openness, but never like this.

The alcohol was having its effects on Lorelai as well. "If only he'd be better equipped..."

Luke didn't know if he could trust his ears.

"You know, there's always that moment when you first see each other naked. A woman hopes he'll grow when he doesn't show. I mean, not in a humongous way. I don't want him to poke my liver. I should stop babbling on about this stuff. You're a married man now, you don't have problems like that. Not that you'd have problems like that anyway, so..."

He didn't leave her in silence. "When you're married, it doesn't mean you don't have problems in that area. Just because you have someone at your disposal for sex doesn't mean you'll get to use them for it all the time."

"Well, it saves you a trip to the next bar to get to know someone for sex."

"I haven't had sex in weeks," he blurted out.

A moment worthy of a spit take and an empty glass in front of her. Today just wasn't her day.

"But I mean, that's normal, right? Going through a dry spell."

"You ask me? I've never even went through a wet spell, no pun intended. I guess a dry spell is normal. When you've been married for ten years. But in the first year? Even my mother has made comments about not having been able to keep her clothes on when she was first married to my dad. And that's Emily Gilmore talking, the queen of etiquette."

Luke turned silent again.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel bad or anything," she shrugged and gave him a half-smile.

"It's OK. You didn't. If there's anything you did it's pointing out that I'm possibly at fault for not satisfying my own wife."

Now it was Lorelai's turn to want to cut her ears off. She knew Luke wasn't exactly a Samantha, but at the same time she hadn't expected him to open up about those things. Taboo things. At least taboo in their friendship. She felt like she had better go home before said something to him she'd later regret.

"Maybe I just should shave more often..." he said, but Lorelai didn't get what he was trying to say.

"Huh?"

"Nicole told me she kinda hated my stubble on her skin. It hurt her or something."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

Lorelai raised her hand to his cheek and stroked him. "Huh."

"What?" he wanted to know.

"I don't think it's prickly. Unlike you," she grinned.

"Haha."

"Well, what do you know. Proverb Thursday has become pun Thursday."

"I guess it feels different on more delicate skin than on the palm of your hand."

"Anyway," Lorelai said as she got up from the stool. "I'm going home now. I hope I didn't stay too long."

"You didn't. It was either this or talking to Mrs. Gleason."

"Aw, you always know how to make me feel appreciated," she said sarcastically.

When she was almost out the door, Luke simply had to ask her. The whiskey had lowered his inhibition enough and his curiosity got the better of him. "Lorelai?"

"Hm?"

"Did you, um, fake it? I mean, for him?" he quietly asked, his cheeks redder than before.

"Hell no!" came the response. "He might as well know that there's room for improvement."

And with that, she was out the door. Luke exhaled and couldn't hide his smirk. Of course Lorelai would say something like that. He watched her as she passed the Jeep and walked home. It confirmed his choice to sleep upstairs that night. Sometimes it just wasn't worth faking it.

* * *

 _The linguist in me needs to let you smart Gillies know that Umlaut technically is the wrong term here. Umlaut means the transformation from a to ä, o to ö and u to ü in the German language. The two dots on their own are called dieresis. They can be found on all vowels, and I've seen them in French, Spanish and even English (hello Brontë sisters!). Also, the correct plural for Umlaut is Umlaute, not Umlauts. If I don't deserve a review for sharing that knowledge, I don't know what else I could have done..._


	2. Chapter 2: Rachel and Max

**AN:** The people have spoken. I had to write another chapter, a one-shot. Sorry to disappoint anyone who wanted a continuation of the first chapter, but this will remain in the style of one-shots. I'll even try to not disturb the canon of the show with these one-shots. I might break that rule once in a while, but in general it will be grown-up conversations between Lorelai and Luke. The rating will remain T, but consider it a strong T. It won't get too graphic, but sometimes the occasional f-bomb will be dropped. I will sporadically update this, whenever then urge hits.

Thanks for all the lovely reviews, faves and follows I got. And the biggest thanks as always goes to _DSLeo_ , my beta and moral support for all occasions.

* * *

 **Chapter Two: Rachel and Max**

Luke watched as her Jeep pulled up on the kerb in front of the diner. This was his favorite part of the week. He did most of the cleaning in the diner, and when he was lucky, she came by for a late cup of coffee. He saw how Rory hugged her mother before she ran across the town square in the direction of the Kims. Soon the bells jangled and Lorelai stepped in the diner.

"Hey," she said and sat down at the counter.

"Hi. Coffee?"

"Coffee is always a good idea," she replied as she sat at the counter.

He poured her a cup and took the carafe to the kitchen to rinse it.

"So, how's your dad doing?" Luke asked her when he returned.

"Better, thanks. The Friday Night Dinners are back on schedule." She drank from her cup and moaned in appreciation of the dark brown liquid soothing her.

Luke hurried to turn his back to her. He wasn't keen on the visual on top of the audio of those noises she was making.

"So? How was it?" he asked her.

"Well, my mother calmed down after finding out I was dating Rory's teacher."

Luke swallowed. "Good, good."

"Yeah, but that's only because we're now broken up."

"Really? I mean, I'm sorry."

"Thanks."

"What happened?"

"Well, my mother found out about Max and me dating, so she made a scene, and I was going to break up with him, but then there was that stupid kiss and Paris saw us, and then he broke up with me."

"Wow. Maybe we should start a club. But you said you were going to break up with _him_. Why?"

"Why? I mean, there are multiple reasons. For one, I really regret agreeing to go out with him in the first place. He's Rory's teacher. What was I thinking? As Sookie reminded me, my pattern is to break up with a guy before it gets serious, before, I, uh, before I get attached. But with him in Rory's life, how could this not have been serious from the get-go?"

Luke listened to her closely, though he pretended to go through his regular clean-up routine. He wiped the tables before he sprayed them down with disinfectant. Lorelai turned around on her bar stool and waited for a reaction from him. It didn't come.

"Anyway, and then it was pretty much that our relationship was only based on sex."

"What?" Luke asked about an octave too high. Or two.

"You know what I mean, Luke. Those relationships where you don't have a lot in common, you barely can make it through a conversation without ripping each other's clothes off, because duh, that's the only thing you are interested in. Don't tell me you've never had a relationship like that. I think Carrie and the girls referred to it as the fuck buddy."

"No, I've never had a relationship like that."

"I see, you're still doing your little monk shtick."

"I'm not. Who are 'Carrie and the girls'?" he asked with a confused stare at the disinfectant in his hand.

"I've been telling you to get HBO, Luke. You could honestly learn something. Do you never listen?"

"Lorelai," he said and pinched the bridge of his nose, "I do listen, but I'm a bit confused here. Seems to me like you had the perfect relationship. Lots of sex, no attachment, so please tell me what's the problem here."

She lowered her head and her shoulders sagged a little. "I should have started with 'The relationship on my side is like that.' Max didn't really see it like that. He thinks we're soulmates or whatever. I guess that's why he was so determined to ask me out."

He faced her then. He just had to know. "Then why did you agree to go out with him?"

"I was flattered I guess. It doesn't happen a lot that men who know that I'm a mother ask me out."

Luke gulped. It was something he himself had failed to do for the past five years.

"And I'm not really interested in dating guys who only ask me out because of how I look. I want a guy who is genuinely interested in me. And being a mom is part of that, but alas, guys who know that are suddenly no longer interested in dating me. But enough about me. You said earlier we should start a club. Got any good names, Sergeant Pepper?"

He did a little half-chuckle. "How about 'club for idiots who are incapable of maintaining a relationship'?"

"Oh, the CFIWAIMR? Rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it?"

Now they both chuckled.

"Speaking of which. Is it too much to ask, and I'm asking for a friend here, but when the physical side of a relationship is developed to a greater degree, is it too much to ask to do sexy stuff when you're not in bed? I mean, the guy lives alone, there are no creepy roommates, and yet he was always so determined to stay in the bedroom for, you know, the bedroom stuff. What's wrong with a little action in the kitchen?"

Luke for a moment considered drinking the contents of the spray bottle that he still clutched in his left hand. Was he hallucinating? No, he slightly shook his head. He hadn't drunk the disinfectant yet. He was convinced this was the universe's punishment for not having asked out Lorelai. She was going into detail about her sex life and he wished he could vanish. As he was plotting disappearing from the scene, he was also wondering how anyone would or could not fulfill her every wish and fantasy. That teacher guy clearly was an unworthy loser. But then, at least he had managed to take the first obstacle of asking Lorelai out.

"Sorry," she whispered sheepishly, "I know I shared too much."

"No!" Luke said too quickly, too loudly. "I mean, not at all. We're friends, right? We should be able to talk about... things."

"Yeah, but maybe those are topics for a woman friend. And you're my man friend." She let that statement hang in the air for too long, so she quickly added, "Sorry, that sounded wrong. Man friend. Sounds like we're two 55-year-olds who can't call each other boyfriend and girlfriend because we were left on the scrap heap." She chuckled. "OK, I'm shutting up now," and sipped from her mug.

They were both silent for a long while. Luke kept cleaning tables and she nursed her coffee, desperate to drink more, anxious to empty her cup. She turned around and watched him. He was still wearing the blue hat she had given him. Now that she was trying to think, she couldn't come up with one occasion where the hat hadn't sat atop his head ever since she gave it to him last month.

"Hey Luke?"

"Hm?"

"You said you were incapable of maintaining a relationship. Why?"

"I, uh, I don't think I'm at an age where I like to change much. Relationships often require you changing for the other."

"Yeah. Why is that? I mean, why do _I_ have to change? Aren't I enough?"

"Sometimes, you're too much," he smiled that rare smile that told her he was really enjoying himself. It was close to the smug grin he shot her when they were in the hospital.

He then made the mistake of walking right past Lorelai, which gave her a chance to punch him in the shoulder.

"I probably deserved that," Luke mumbled.

"Humility becomes you well, friend. Who was the last person that asked you to change for them?"

"That would be my ex-girlfriend."

"Does she have a name?"

"Rachel."

"Rachel? Sounds made up."

"What?"

"It sounds like you made her up just now."

"Why?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe because I have never ever seen you with a woman. It seemed to me as if you had seen _Friends_ earlier and the name Rachel popped in your head ten seconds ago."

Luke then put the spray bottle down and reached into his back pocket. He put his wallet on the counter and produced a photo of a pretty redhead with curls and a killer smile.

"Oh," was all Lorelai could force herself to say.

He put the photo back where it belonged and refilled Lorelai's coffee.

"You're confusing me with Kirk. I didn't make her up. I wish. Would've saved me a lot of heartbreak."

"If you don't mind me asking. What happened?"

Luke took a deep breath and sat next to her. "We were in love. And then she left. And she took my heart with her. But she came back, and I thought I'd get my second chance. But she left again and I was dumb enough to take her back when she returned. And since I'm apparently not only incapable of maintaining a relationship, I'm also incapable of learning from my mistakes, we spent the better part of a decade holding on to each other in spite of knowing it wasn't gonna last. At times it felt like that dumb Bill Murray movie where he wakes up to live the same day over and over again."

" _Groundhog Day_."

"Yeah, that's the one. Anyway, every time she asked me to come with her. But I can't, Lorelai. This is my home. I might mock everything and everyone in this town, but I can't exist anywhere else. I guess that's the curse."

"Where did she want you to go?"

"Brazil, Nigeria, Israel, Pakistan, you name it. She's a photographer. Her work takes her everywhere. I think I maybe could have handled starting over. Once. But a constant loop of starting over? That's simply not who I am. I'm not someone who can easily adapt anywhere, multiple times over."

"I'm sorry it didn't work out."

"Yeah, me too," he said wistfully.

"Would you take her back if she came back again?"

"No," came the quick reply.

"That was fast. Why are you so sure?"

"Because that last time she really broke my heart. She promised to stay that time. She didn't ask me to come with her. We wanted to stay here in Stars Hollow. Two days later she was gone."

"Oh Luke, I'm so sorry. That must have been tough. Can I ask you one more question?"

"Yes, we had sex in the kitchen," he grinned.

Lorelai laughed. "I was gonna ask why you still keep her picture in your wallet when you're so sure that you don't want to get back together with her."

"Um, out of habit, I guess. I never clean out my wallet."

"OK. But you just took the photo out. You could have left it out."

"Lorelai..." he said, exasperated.

She held up her hands in defense. "Sorry, shutting up now."

Lorelai drained the last of her coffee and got up from her stool. She put two dollars on the counter and took her purse. But Luke stopped her by putting his hand on her shoulder.

"Don't go. I'm not used to be called out on that kinda stuff."

"I know. I don't wanna go full-on Sigmund here, but could it be that you don't let anyone come close to you, besides potential romantic partners?"

He exhaled. "Yeah. I'm aware of that. Believe me when I say that you and Rory are much closer to me than anyone. I guess the both of you are very insistent."

They both had to smile. "I know it's scary, Luke, but we're not going anywhere. Well, Rory will go to college at some point, but I'm here to stay. This is my home. I wasn't born here, but I chose to come here. And like you I can't imagine living anywhere else."

"That's good to know," he remarked with a sense of relief.

She was quiet for a while. It was unfamiliar to have Luke sit next to her on a barstool. She felt his eyes on her, but not having him on the other side of the counter meant that she'd have to make the conscious choice to turn toward him instead of just looking up. A grin spread across her mouth as she faced him. "So, how was the kitchen sex?"

His grin was broader than hers. "Not bad."

"Aha! So you're not a monk after all!"

"No."

"Which kitchen?"

"What do you mean, which kitchen?"

"Well, you have the diner kitchen and probably one upstairs. I can't be sure, you haven't ever invited me upstairs."

"Do you think I would violate the health code and have sex down here?"

"Well, who knows what happens in the throes of passion? Besides, you'd probably clean up afterwards."

"What if anyone heard or saw us?"

"Well, then they'd know you're getting some."

"Maybe that would make Patty stop getting on my nerves. So, um, does that mean you've never had, uh, kitchen sex?" he asked carefully and slightly embarrassed. But he had told her so much, he felt the need to learn something about her as well.

"No."

"I don't get more than that?"

She cleared her throat and blinked once. "As you can imagine, for kitchen sex you need a kitchen, which we didn't have when we lived in the old potting shed by the inn. And now my kitchen is right by Rory's room. Besides, when you have a child you're not out on the town all the time and if you meet someone on that rare occasion you do things by the book."

"Oh, I hadn't thought about that," he nodded.

All sorts of thoughts were rushing through his head. Did Lorelai just allude to the fact that she hadn't had sex a lot of times? It made sense now that he was thinking about it. Part of him wanted to take her upstairs right this instance to let her experience kitchen sex, but he knew she'd never want him that way. At least it was his experience that their relationship window was firmly closed. This didn't stop him from going through the contents of his fridge in his head to take inventory of anything that might be of assistance to make this an experience she'd never forget.

"Hey, where did you drift off to just now?" she asked him as she poked his upper arm.

"Oh, nowhere."

"OK, since you're clearly lying and it's gotten late, I better get home." She knew he was thinking about kitchen sex with Rachel. He clearly was still hung up on her. Why else would he hold onto her picture?

"All right, if you have to." Those words of his surprised Lorelai. He had never expressed any kind of fondness for her company other than getting him out of awkward situations with customers or Taylor.

They both got up and he walked her to the door.

"So, um, this was fun. I really envy you for all the wild sex you had with Rachel."

He grinned.

"What?" she asked. "Was it really so good?"

"No, I mean, yes it was, but you almost made it sound as if you would have liked to taken my place."

"You have shown me her picture. She sure is beautiful. But in a more traditional sense, I was probably talking about taking her place instead of yours."

Luke's grin got broader. A lightbulb went on and Lorelai's face turned into a deep crimson.

"Geez, that came out wrong. I meant that as a woman I wasn't thinking about being the man in that scenario."

"I get it," he chuckled.

Lorelai really enjoyed seeing him so cheerful, even though it meant she had just gone to hell and back. It wasn't exactly her plan to let it slip how turned on their conversation had made her and that it was absolutely in the realm of possibilities that she saw Luke as a sexual being. But she had to be real. He had never shown any interest in her. Most guys she did have even the briefest relationship with would make their intentions known in the beginning. But Luke obviously had never seen her that way. She said goodnight and went to her car. She was glad she had told Rory to walk home so that she had the five minutes it took to drive herself home to calm down somewhat.

Luke locked the door after she had left and walked up the stairs that croaked under his weight. When he opened the door to his apartment, he routinely put the keys on the kitchen table and reached for his wallet to put it next to them. He took off his hat and started stripping. When he was halfway to his bathroom to have a shower, he came back to the kitchen table and opened his wallet. He took out the portrait of Rachel and fingered the paper. His look went to the kitchen counter and back to the photograph in his hands. He slightly smiled at the memory and put both items back on the table. This time he wasn't so sure the picture belonged in his wallet anymore. He questioned if it ever had belonged in there.

Now he was thinking about Lorelai's words from before. It was true that he had never invited her up to his apartment. Maybe it was time to take that step in their friendship. Because it was clear to him that this was all it was ever going to be, a friendship. On the other hand he had never talked with any other friend about explicit sex stuff. He was confused. At the end of their conversation he swore he could detect embarrassment in her eyes. There was only one explanation for that, but he didn't want to allow himself to hope. Hope was what got him into a vicious cycle with Rachel all those years ago. With a nod to no one but himself he picked up the photograph and threw it in the trash.

* * *

 _Leave me a review if you will. It will be greatly appreciated._

 **PurryCat will return**


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